The Social Medicine Portal

New Articles on Latin American Social Medicine: International Journal of Epidemiology

In preparation for the upcoming World Congress of Epidemiology in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the August 2008 edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology is devoted to Latin America. Two articles, in particular, are relevant to those of us with an interest in social medicine:

Howard Waitzkin, Celia Iriart, Holly Shipp Buchanan, Francisco Mercado, Jonathan Tregear, and Jonathan Eldredge discuss the Latin American Social Medicine Database run at the University of New Mexico. This is a database about which we have posted previously.

Jaime Breilh, one of the most important figures in Latin American Social Medicine, describes a vision of Latin America’s critical, social epidemiology as a means to “confront the menacing forces producing our unhealthy societies and an opportunity to form fraternal partnerships on the intercultural road to a better world, where only an epidemiology of dignity and happiness will make sense.”

At the time of this posting, the full articles were not available for free on-line. The Journal offers free excerpts (both of which follow). Interested readers may want to contact the authors for reprints. You can email them through these links: Dr. Howard Waitzkin, Dr. Jaime Breilh.

The Latin American Social Medicine Database: a resource for epidemiology

Latin American social medicine (LASM) has become a widely respected and influential field of research, teaching and clinical practice, yet its accomplishments remain little known in the English-speaking and -reading world.^1-3 Important publications have not been translated from Spanish and Portuguese into English, and the majority of LASM journals are not indexed in MEDLINE or similar bibliographic databases. The field’s development also suffers from technical difficulties of publication and distribution within Latin America.

In LASM, a perspective emphasizing the social origins of illness and early death has focused on sources of these problems in relations of economic and political power. This orientation has contributed to the analysis of inequity in health and to alternative proposals for change. For instance, LASM analyses critically some of the dominant reform strategies in public health systems, offers proposals for alternative health policies and fosters research on the micro- and macro-political processes that affect health . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Latin American critical (‘Social’) epidemiology: new settings for an old dream

Background: Epidemiology’s role as the ‘diagnostic’ arm of public health has submitted epidemiological reasoning and practice to the crossfire of and demands. In Latin America, the visible signs oppositional social values of extreme social and political authoritarianism and inequity, as well as the growing unfairness of the World economy, inspired a culture of social critique and a corresponding academic reform movement, which nurtured a profound social awareness among health scientists.

Aims The authors’ aim is to call attention to the need to overcome this scientific North/South divide. An imperative, at a moment when the demolition of health standards under the pressures of global economic acceleration and ‘unhealthy health policies,’ confront us all with the common challenge of cross-fertilizing the strengths of academic traditions from both South and North.

Methods The present paper offers a fresh perspective from the South about the relevance of progressive Latin American public health (termed ‘collective health’) by highlighting a number of its hard scientific contributions which, unfortunately, remain almost unknown to mainstream medical and public health researchers outside Latin America.

Results An armed form of structural greed has now placed the world on the brink of destruction. At the same time, however, fresh winds blow in the continent.

Conclusion This paper is an invitation to confront the menacing forces producing our unhealthy societies and an opportunity to form fraternal partnerships on the intercultural road to a better world, where only an epidemiology of dignity and happiness will make sense. [Link to the article]

Posted by Matt Anderson